Nearly 80 attend Festival post-mortem

Around 80 people attended a post-mortem on the Tamworth Country Music Festival on Thursday night in Tamworth.

The community raised concerns about accommodation, busking, transport and dwindling crowds.

Bev McCumstie, who organises country music festivals at other Australian venues, told the meeting she was particularly concerned about price gouging.

She says if Tamworth doesn't confront the issue of over-charging it will lose its loyal following of fans for good.

"Some motels load up 500 per cent and the argument is it's peak time, yes, you're entitled to load but I don't know about that much and the same with drinks," she said.

"A can of Jim Beam mixer, it was $14 at one hotel and $12 at another and the only way that it will solve itself is when people stop coming, which it appears, they already have."

Marie Hodson is an independent country music artist who lives at Werris Creek.

She told Thursday's meeting that crowds were definitely down at this year's Festival, with only 120 people attending her concert.

Ms Hodson says she lost money on every ticket she sold.

"So, I charge $20 and then I pay a booking fee of $3 and I pay $5 dollars for the venue and then I pay a credit card charge and then I pay advertising, half a page which is $800," she said.

"I have five players [in the band] who I pay $500 each, so I'm out about for about $1,500 to $2,000."

The Mayor of Tamworth Regional Council, Col Murray, has conceded changes will have to be made to some aspects of the Tamworth Country Music Festival.

Col Murray told the meeting Council is honestly evaluating the criticisms of the 2013 Festival.

"Well, I guess the busking will change and we knew that very early for obvious reasons, I think the prices some businesses are charging and householders, too, some of the musicians they're paying up to $6,000 for the 10 days," he said.

"I guess also extending and consolidating the bus travel [is another issue]."

Electrical engineer, Bas Spek has lived at Moore Creek for nine years.

He was one of many who raised concerns about the noise generated by some buskers.

Mr Spek says buskers shouldn't be burdened with any more audition rules.

But he says Council could do more to utilise simple technology that cuts off power to buskers who continue to exceed noise levels.

"I think that they should abolish all rules except for maybe the rule not to make too much noise and just let everybody in that has a guitar or wants to play or whatever," he said.

"But if you have the one rule that says not making more than 90dBs then there's a little box that [can be fitted] that cuts down their power supply as soon as they're too loud."